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Month: June 2014

This method of printing a T-shirt is a bit involved, but it’s also pretty permanent (washable in cold water, hang to dry) and after a couple washes it gets soft (unlike acrylics). Now that I’ve done it once, I’ll definitely be doing it again.

Materials

Anything you want to print onto – I buy plain T-shirts for $9.99 for 4 in Chinatown

Crayons in the colour you want your design to be – in the video I used about 1 crayon’s worth of shavings for the “HOT” on my shirt

A cheap pencil sharpener

A toothpick

Parchment paper

Newspaper

A craft knife

Paper and pen (or more crayons)

An iron

Instructions

Peel the paper off of your crayons and use the pencil sharpener to shave the crayons down to a stub. Use the toothpick to unstick the sharpener when it inevitably gets jammed with wax.

Draw the design or words you want to put on your shirt onto a piece of paper, and cut it out using the craft knife.

Place the garment on a surface, and place a few sheets of newspaper inside it to prevent the wax from melting through to the back.

Place the template on your garment. Sprinkle or arrange a single layer of crayon shavings over the holes in your template.

Place a sheet of parchment paper over the garment, template, and crayon. Heat an iron and iron over the template, just long enough so that the crayon completely melts, just a few seconds. It will look like an utter mess and you’ll despair. But don’t give up.

Leave the parchment paper on the garment for about a minute, until the crayon has cooled a bit. Then remove the parchment paper and template and behold your masterpiece!

Allow the crayon to cool completely before removing the newspaper and trying on your garment.

This video is pretty different from our last two, and because of that I’d like to make the post a little different (longer) as well.

Thirty years ago (and far before that), queer folks created their own spaces because they simply were not safe or accepted in mainstream spaces. The spaces were created out of necessity. If queer people had been allowed to be themselves in mainstream spaces, queer spaces would not have been necessary. With this segregation, a distinct culture emerged and these spaces became not only safe but also vibrant and positive spaces where people could revel in a common identity and be sure that the people around them shared certain experiences.

Nowadays, especially in Canada, queer people, especially gender-conforming gay and lesbian people, are usually relatively (physically) safe in mainstream spaces, although they are still subject to quite a bit of stigma and aggression. So queer spaces are not strictly necessary for safety reasons for those people. (Though I would point out that they are still necessary for a lot of queer folks who do experience a disproportionate amount of aggression, especially trans people.) But these spaces ARE necessary for social reasons – practical ones, like the fact that we’re a minority, so to find someone whose sexual orientation matches yours, it’s much easier if you concentrate yourselves in one area – and more abstract reasons. It’s extremely comforting knowing that the people around you share the same minority experiences as you. I feel perfectly safe around straight allies, but I do not have those shared experiences with them.

Please watch the video for our main points, but I wanted to give a bit of context and explanation to the video here. For a quick overview of the video, basically we say:

WORLDPRIDE TORONTO WOOOO

please go out to your local Pride Parade and support your LGBTQ+ friends!!!

but if you are straight please don’t take up too much space (physical, or in conversation) when in queer spaces, including at Pride!

tip: are you talking way more about your experiences than the queer people in your group are? Don’t!

tip: are you performing hetero PDA at a Pride event? Don’t….you can do that literally anywhere and we cannot.

if you’re going to a gay bar and you’re not accompanying an LGBTQ+ friend, please rethink it – don’t be a cultural tourist

Mug cakes are the ultimate student food. Here are the recipes for two very simple, very delicious, very fast mug cakes.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons flour (or 2 for a smaller but richer cake)

1 heaping teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon ground flax seeds

½ teaspoon cinnamon (for peanut butter cinnamon mug cake)

2 tablespoons cocoa powder (for chocolate mug cake)

2 tablespoons peanut butter (for pb cinnamon)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil, or melted butter or margarine

3 tablespoons milk (any kind – I usually use almond)

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

optional: chocolate chips (leave out the cinnamon and add chocolate chips to the pb mug cake, or add chips to the chocolate for double chocolate. Both highly recommended.)

Instructions

Mix all dry ingredients together with a fork in a large mug. Add wet ingredients and stir until just smooth. Place in the microwave for 1 min. All microwaves are a little different, but your mug cake is done when it doesn’t look wet on top.

Our first content post! How exciting! As you’ll see, the format of our posts will be just like this: you’ll find the associated not-exactly-instructional-video at the top of the post, and right underneath you’ll find the recipe. Simple as that!